Food for All

Our adult daughter has a Christmas ornament exchange party at our house every year with her friends. My wife and I enjoy the cooking—with usually 30 and sometimes even more folks showing up. We make “Cincinnati chili,” always a favorite. The soup is so thick and rich that you can stretch it but not dilute its goodness by adding cups of water as the contents of the giant pot goes down.

Today’s Gospel doesn’t use this kind of trick. I would contend, however, that Jesus had the same philosophy back of it all: love—the love demonstrated in feeding hungry people. This miracle also reminds us of the manna in the desert at the Exodus, and then the greatest meal, yet to come: the Eucharist, the “Source and Summit” of our Christian life.